You can always rely on the good old Met Police apparatchniks to spend the hard-earned cash of the tax-payers of the Metropolis (those that actually pay it) wisely.

In March of this year they spent 4,000 of our English Pounds gift-wrapping it to a 16-year-old teenager in the form of compensation.

I got less than half that amount in compensation for an injury sustained in a violent assault which resulted in a broken bone, several weeks off work and 3 operations under general anaesthetic over the next 4 years.

So what has to happen to you to merit such an award as 4 grand these days? Being hit over the head with a baton whilst minding your own business at a riot? Getting a broken leg whilst dodging a drunken power-crazed plod at the wheel of a wayward police riot van? Er, no.

Anop Singh got his free cash when police came across him and his mates chucking conkers at the law abiding public of Hackney. Master Singh declined to leave the area at the request of one of the Met’s finest who offered to put him in he nearest dustbin if he didn’t cease & desisit. Singh replied "Go on then" so the officer obliged, picked him up and placed him feet first into a nearby bin, from which Singh immediately jumped out. You may remember the footage on the BBC news at the time as one of Singh’s mates recorded it on his mobile. (anyone got a link to it, I couldn’t find it via Google).

Now obviously this event caused so much trauma & humiliation that the Met felt the best thing to do was to give the ‘victim’ four grand to ease his ‘suffering’.

Coompare this to the case of paratrooper Ben Parkinson who was engaged in something actually useful fighting for their country in Afghanistan. He was blown up by a landmine & suffered a total of 37 terrible injuries. He lost both legs & sustained serious damage to his spine, skull, pelvis, hands, spleen & ribcage. He has been described by military doctors as the most seriously injured soldier to actually survive.

He has been offered the sum total of £152,150 compensation which won’t even buy his mother a bungalow in which to care for him. He will require a specially adapted home and spcialist care for the rest of his life. It amazes me that with the billions spent on fighting a war the government can’t find a few million to care for people such as Ben it sends off to fight their battles.

Compare again to:

the RAF typist who claimed to have suffered repetative strain injury in her thumb which meant she could never work again and got £487,000.

The fraud convict who never held a job & got £248,000 after claiming he fell in the shower in prison which made his leg numb and caused impotency, he later went on to father a child.

A teacher awarded £330,000 for "trauma" after an intruder entered her classroom but caused her no physical harm

A prisoner who got £575,000 after trying to kill himself in a young offfender’s institution despite prison officers saving his life.

An undercover PC who received £175,000 when she claimed the radio earpiece she’d been using caused tinnitus.

The Hillsborough tragedy police officer who received £330,000 for post traumatic stress disorder (the family of one 14-year-old killed in the tragedy received £3,500 compensation)

The Scottish police officer who lost her job after being accused of a crime when her fingerprint was wrongly judged to have been left at a crime scene received £750,000

If you think the Met Police are a joke, you should see the clowns in South Africa. Just two weeks ago we witnessed a shootout on the busiest freeway in Johannesburg, an action that lasted 5 hours by the way, and guess who was involved?

Our Metro Police decided they would strike for better pay and the best way of doing that was to block the a major highway. Someone called the South Africa Police, (who fortunately weren’t on strike that day) and a standoff ensued.

We witnessed this great drama live on TV. It ended with a shootout between our two police forces, live… The Metro cops used live ammo whilst the SAP used rubber bullets.

On the subject of your post, one of our cops would most likely have put the gentleman in head first, so as to make it easier to go through his pockets…